Unable to give a return address, I cell the tale of my successful Co-Vid application. On the dawn of the Ιός-era, I attended the birth of Corona, a name chosen in homage to my favourite beer. We clinked glasses over replays of Men in Black. The baby was quarantined. I interviewed in front of a panel of three who deemed my status as Other my best credential. The evolution of the Other is one we have all observed in recent times in sequential order from behind desks. As a non-permanent resident, I got the job of reporting on the future. No pay. Just the guarantee I won’t be deported. I should feel transported, but ground myself in the immediate future: fights over toilet paper, racist slurs, an emptying of department stores, cinemas, concert halls, cricket grounds, football ovals and swimming pools. In the foreseeable future I see bodies shutting down, schools closing and frontiers erecting electrified fences manned by machine guns. In the unforeseen future, I see Corona blooming into multiple metamorphoses past makeshift morgues and mass graves. My vision bears the mark of a sinister facsimile machine. It fails to encompass the global perspective requested of me so far.
Love it. Scary. Bizarre. And close to the bone.
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